Film & Media Studies

This theoretical course develops knowledge and understanding of the roles and impacts of media in society, including elements of media, issues of power and control, representation of social groups and cultures, and communication theories.

This course examines East Asia cinemas in the framework of transnationality. It focuses on inter/intra-cultural junctures, stylistics, thematics, and socio-political and historical contexts of cinemas of South & North Korea, China, Hong Kong, and Japan. It also discusses the issues of gender, ethnic, and national identity that are raised and contested in these cinemas, questioning the notions of national cinema and nation-bound culture. 

This course examines all aspects of the work of the producer from pre-production planning, through production and post-production. Students assume the role of a producer responsible for creating or acquiring a story idea and developing it through conceptualization, budgeting, treatment, proposal, funding, scheduling, outreach, marketing and distribution.

In an age where cross cultural interactions and global traffics are frequent, Hong Kong cinema cannot be regarded merely as local cinema. It is an interesting site where complex global processes can be traced. Flows of capital, film personnel, technologies, ideas and creativity are vibrantly circulating inside and outside the cultural industry of film making, resulting in phenomena such as transnational co-productions and cross-cultural co-operations. These dynamic processes are inflected in characterization, plot development and space time configurations on Hong Kong screens. This course explores the local-global interactions from a variety of approaches. With a selection of Hong Kong films, the course provides understanding of the two way relationship between the local, popular entertainment and global film scene by investigating the major questions regarding globalizations. Film critics, scholars and filmmakers conduct workshops and give guest lectures. Assessment: video test, group presentation with report, participation.

This course studies the history of Spanish film from the ''camara oscura'' to the present. Historical accounts of film as an aesthetic form, a social force, an economic institution, and a technology are considered. The course also covers major Spanish directors including Luis Bunuel, Benito Perojo, Fernando Fernan Gomez, Luis Berlanga, Carlos Saura, Victor Erice, Fernando Trueba, and Pedro Almodovar. Close attention to their film composition, choices of subject and character, and the relationship of their movies to Spanish culture and society is given.

This course provides a study of the audiovisual storytelling: construction, narrative devices, and the history and theory of film narrative.

This course examines advertising in the changing media environment. It covers the rise of consumerism and materialism, the current advertising industry, advertising and consumer wellbeing, and persuasion through covert and data-driven advertising. It will also address the implications of advertising practices on critical groups such as children and youth and discuss ethics and regulations. This course does not focus on how to create advertisements or develop communications campaigns. Instead, it concentrates on how advertising is placed in a larger economic, regulatory, and social context, with an aim to provide an important foundation for practice.

This course provides an introduction to the practice of film criticism. Topics include the social and cultural function of criticism; film theory and approaches; critical and comparative analysis of reviews.

The course focuses on the differing approaches and styles used by global media. Students investigate press and journalism business models, issues of globalization, and examine cross-national differences in terms of ethics, media content, and access to creative industries. It also considers theories around social change and globalization.

This course is to help students evaluate, both politically and aesthetically, the way Nordic films convey their social and cultural values and commitments. Given the belief in film's historical and social significance, it is the particular purpose of this course to look at Nordic films from 1945 to the present and analyze how they perceived and conjured up the social and cultural landscape. In addition, we will also look at some of the major political events and social and cultural trends that dominated a decade and left a mark on its films. In order to achieve these goals, we will examine three different areas more closely: a) state control and support of film production; b) film cultural characteristics, both those which seem to point in the direction of a unity in Nordic contexts and those that define each country respectively; c) Nordic cinema in transition in times of transnationalism and globalization.